Hungry Hill (12 page)

After lunch there was more conversation, and then sighs, and yawns, and a feeling that everyone must do as he pleased.

Henry rested in the shade of a boulder, with Barbara beside him, under her large sunshade, and Jane and the young officers read poetry behind a clump of heather.

Eliza had planted herself down in front of a stunted gorse-bush, through which she could peer from time to time at Lieutenant Davies and tell herself how very plain he was, and look from him back to her easel, upon which a sketch of the distant harbour of Doonhaven was taking slow shape. Bob Flower was asleep and snoring loudly, which, thought Eliza, was very ill-mannered of him, and he ought to be looking after his sister, who had disappeared.

John was throwing stones aimlessly into the lake.

He had been a fool not to bring his rod, a trout was rising now in the middle, he could see the sudden ripple and the plop of the water, and he began to stroll along the edge towards the farther end of the lake, out of sight of the picnic party. How warm it was on Hungry Hill, how silent and how still. No one would know that only three miles or so to the eastward were the tall, ugly chimneys of his father’s mine. The soft moss squelched under his feet, and there came to him the sour, boggy smell of the cold lake-water, and the scent of the heather as well. Poor Henry, he thought; this is what he would like, standing here with the little soft wind in his face, not lying down under a rug with his head on his arm.

A louder splash than usual caught his ear-there must be some big trout in the lake, after all-and he climbed over a boulder to have a sight of the fish, and oh, God! it was no fish jumping at all, but Fanny-Rosa, naked, with her hair falling on her shoulders, wading out into the lake, throwing the water aside with her hands.

She turned and saw him, and instead of shrieking in distress and shame, as his sisters would have done, she looked up at him, and smiled, and said, “Why do you not come in too ? It is cool and lovely.”

He felt himself go scarlet, and the sweat broke out on his forehead. Saying nothing, he turned away and began to walk rapidly in the opposite direction until his foot caught in a rabbit-hole and overturned him, and he slipped sideways into the heather, cursing and blaspheming, and sat for a while nursing his injured ankle, while a lark rose from in front of him and hovered in the air, singing his song of freedom.

Presently-hours must have passed, he thought; he did not care- he heard someone come and sit beside him, and turning he saw Fanny-Rosa, dressed once more, her face glowing with her swim, her hair wet on her shoulders.

“You think me shameful,” she said softly, “you have a great disgust at me.”

“Ah, no,” he said swiftly, sweeping her with his eyes, “you don’t understand. I came away because you were so lovely… .?

And he stammered, and could say no more, because she was smiling at him, and the smile was too much.

“You won’t tell Miss Brodrick, will you?” she pleaded. “She would never ask me to Clonmere again, and maybe she would write and tell my mother.”

“I won’t tell anyone, ever,” said John.

They were silent, and she began to pluck at the grass with her hands, which were small and slim. She laid them beside his a moment in contrast, and then, when he still said nothing, she put her hands on top of his, and in a low, quiet voice she said: “I think you are angry with me.”

“Angry?” he said. “Fanny-Rosa, how could anyone be angry with you?”

And suddenly he had his arms round her, and she was lying on her back in the heather, with her eyes closed, and he was kissing her.

After a while she opened her eyes, but she did not look at him. She watched the lark flying overhead, and then she put up her hand and touched his cheek, and his mouth, and his eyes, and his dark hair, and she said: “You’ve wanted to kiss me for a long time, have you not?”

“For nearly ten months,” he told her, “I have thought of nothing else.”

“Is it a disappointment to you,” she said, “now that you have?”

“No,” he said, land he wished he could tell her something of the fullness in his heart, something of the tenderness he felt for her, something of the longing that swept his whole body. But words were things of such difficulty, he could not juggle with them, he could only look down at her lying there in the heather, and suffer and worship.

“I thought,” she said, “that it was only your old greyhounds you cared for,” and she held up her hands for him to kiss the fingers one by one. “That day you came to Andriff,” she told him, “in the winter comd you remember?-it was you who seemed light-hearted then, and your brother who was serious. But now that I know you both better I think it is the other way round. Henry is gay, and you are solemn.”

When she spoke of Henry he was aware instantly of a pang of jealousy, and he remembered how she had laughed and flirted with his brother all through lunch, and had not looked at him. The memory made a twist in his mind, and he sat up, and gazed out across the hill, and the lark that had been singing overhead came down to earth and was hidden.

“You like Henry, don’t you?” he said. “Everyone does.”

“I like you both,” she said.

In the distance they could hear the sound of voices calling, and Fanny-Rosa made a face.

“They are wondering what can have happened to us,” she said. “Perhaps we should be going back.”

She got up and brushed her dress, humming to herself, and John, watching her, a pain in his heart, thought how little she guessed the feeling that possessed him, and how foolish she would think him did she know.

He had held her and kissed her, and this was to him a thing of so great a magnitude that he knew in all certainty his life from henceforward would be coloured by what had happened that afternoon. Never would he forget the sight of her naked body in the water, never would he lose the touch of her hands and her lips, as she lay in the heather.

But for Fanny-Rosa it had been an interlude, a moment of enjoyment after her bathe, and he wondered, loving her, whether she would have done likewise with his brother, or Willie Armstrong, or the young officers from Doon Island. She gave him her hand now, like a child, as Jane used to do, and led him across the hill back to the lake, and as they walked she told him some nonsensical story about Simon Flower and his tenants-how he had given them all whisky one Christmas and sent every man home drunk-and he looked at her profile and the cloud of chestnut hair, and the happiness he had was sharp, and bitter-sweet.

She dropped his hand when they came within sight of the others. That is the end of it, he thought; now the day is finished, there will not be anything more, and he went silently to see to his horse, and saddle him, and help Tim with the rest of the horses; for to have laughed and chatted and made conversation, as Fanny-Rosa was doing, would have been beyond his power. They were alien to him now, the group of people; he would rather be alone or in the company of stolid Tim.

“What a day it has been, and how I have enjoyed it!” Henry was saying, “and you are all to come and see me embark on the Henrietta, and wave farewell.”

Down they went through the stones and the heather to the track where the carriage had been left, Fanny-Rosa starting the lilting chorus of a song, and the others joining in, the young officers loudest of all. The brilliant blue of the sky had faded now to the still white of a September evening, and little mackerel clouds had gathered about the sun. The first shadows fell upon Hungry Hill. The lovely day, thought Jane, is coming to its close, and behind us we leave the lake, and the rocks, and the heather, and our voices will not trouble the stillness again. Already the day belongs to the past, something we shall look back upon and say to one another, “Do you remember this? Do you remember how Henry laughed, and sang a song with Fanny-Rosa Flower?”

So the party descended to the road, and clattered down the hill into Doonhaven. And there, in the square, were Casey, and another man, and the groom from Castle Andriff, waiting to hold the horses, and everyone dismounted and walked with Henry to the harbour, where the Henrietta lay at anchor, the men casting the sails from the yards preparatory to departure.

Captain Nicholson was on the quayside, having superintended the final stowing of the cargo, and Copper John stood beside him, with the master of the vessel. He smiled as he saw his son approach, and, with a word to the others, came to meet him.

“Not too tired, boy?”

“No, sir. I have had one of the happiest days of my life,” said Henry. ‘ “Good. That is what all of us wished for you. You have cut it rather fine, though.

No time for prolonged farewells, or anything of that sort. The master wishes to weigh anchor as soon as you go on board. The wind is fair, and if it holds you should have a speedy passage to Bronsea.”

Henry kissed his sisters, shook hands with his brother and his friends, and the usual forced words of jollity came to the lips of each in turn. “Bring us all back a shawl, Harry, from the Barbados,” said Eliza, and “Do remember your cough medicine, dear,” from Barbara, while there were injunctions from the young officers not to lose his heart to the native ladies. “Get well quickly, my boy, that is the only thing that concerns me,” said his father, and then Henry turned and went down the steps to the waiting boat, and the boat pulled out across the harbour to the Henrietta.

He stood up in the stern, waving his hat, and smiling.

“We will meet in Naples,” he called to Fanny-Rosa. “That’s a promise, isn’t it?”

She nodded, and smiled in return.

“I shall be waiting on the balcony.”

They watched the boat draw alongside the vessel, and Henry and the master climbed aboard. Almost immediately there was activity, and noise, and bustle, the mate shouting orders from the fo’c’sle, and the creaking of the windlass.

“Don’t let us wait any longer,” said Jane suddenly. “I hate to see a ship sail out of harbour. There is so much of finality about it.”

“There is your brother,” said Fanny-Rosa.

“Look, he is turning this way; he is shouting something to us.”

“No use,” said Copper John, “the wind carries away his voice, and the sound of the windlass… . Come, Jane is right. There is little reason in waiting here any longer. We shall see the ship just as well from Clonmere, if we walk to the end of the creek.”

A dog ran across his legs as he turned, nearly throwing him on to the cobbles. He swore angrily, and hit out at it with his stick, catching it severely over the back, so that the dog howled, and ran limping to the doorway of the shop where it belonged.

“Keep your animal under control, can’t you?” shouted Copper John to the owner, who appeared at the door of the shop, flushed and scowling, and ready to give quarrel. When Copper John saw who it was he turned his back, and walked away from the quay to the market-square, his son and his daughters following.

The man watched them, sullen resentment in his face, and then bent down to his injured dog, muttering to himself, while from nowhere a crowd collected about him, asking questions and giving shrill advice.

“How unfortunate!” whispered Barbara, flushing.

“Did you see?”

“Yes,” said Jane slowly, “yes ‘

Looking over her shoulder, she saw the Henrietta gathering way through the water, as the boats towed her into mid-channel, and the sails broke out upon the yards.

Their father made no allusion to the incident. He helped Fanny-Rosa to mount her horse, and then exchanged a word or two with Bob Flower, giving him some message to take to Robert Lumley, their grandfather, on the next visit to Duncroom.

Doctor Armstrong and the officers shook hands and departed, the Flowers rode away up the hill on the road to Andriff, and the Brodricks, climbing into their father’s carriage, drove home to Clonmere. The sun had gone down behind the trees, and the castle and the creek were in shadow. They stood out on the drive for a moment or two, watching the Henrietta in the distance, and then she disappeared behind Doon Island and they saw her no more.

Copper John went slowly into the house, his hands clasped behind his back. Barbara and Eliza followed. Only John and Jane walked down to the far end of the grounds, where the last fir tree spread his bent branches above the sea, and they looked out over the wide harbour water to the last gleam of sunshine that played on Hungry Hill.

“I wish it had not happened,” said Jane.

“What do you mean?” asked John.

“I wish that father had not hit Sam Donovan’s dog.”

“Oh, that… . Yes, it leaves a sort of sourness to the day. I would have had a look at the dog, but it would have been no use. My father would have been angry, and Sam Donovan taken it the wrong way.”

“You could have done nothing. I only wish it had not happened… . Do you really think the Barbados will make Harry better?”

“I am sure of it. He will be in Naples in the spring. You must have heard him arrange a meeting with Fanny-Rosa.”

John turned, and began to stroll back towards the house. Jane took his arm. Both were silent, both were thinking about Henry. Jane remembered his gay smile, his laugh, his wave of the hand from the little boat as it drew away from the quay-side to the Henrietta, and she wondered how much of it was spontaneous, natural, and how much might be assumed, a mask hiding his illness from his family and from himself. John saw only a balcony in Naples, and on that balcony a girl who was Fanny-Rosa, with a flower behind her ear that she threw to Henry. Perhaps there were lakes in the hills behind Naples, like the lake on Hungry Hill. Perhaps Fanny-Rosa would bathe there too, and show her nakedness to Henry. Perhaps she would walk with him, hand in hand, and then lie down and let him kiss her.

Henry, who was so much worthier than himself, who was clever, who was charming, who was finer in every way.

Henry, who was ill… . The jealousy that possessed him was so shameful and despicable a thing that he was filled with hatred for himself and for his thoughts.

Loving his brother, he yet grudged him one glance, one smile, one touch from Fanny-Rosa, even though that glance and that smile brought a few weeks of gaiety, of forgetfulness, to a sick, perhaps a dying, man. Not only grudged, but hated. And for Henry to think even of Fanny-Rosa in an idle moment was a thing so monstrous and so damnable that Jane, seeing John’s white face and burning eyes, was startled and afraid, and said: “What is it? Are you ill?”